Eagles come alive to beat Musselman

After all, the Eagles had handled the Applemen twice in fairly convincing fashion during the regular season.

Would Merica’s team come to play, or would the Eagles be looking ahead to a potential Friday showdown with Martinsburg in the sectional fina?

The answer was found somewhere in the middle.

The middle ground was good enough for a 51-32 victory Wednesday at the Miller Center.

“That’s a pretty good analogy right there,” Merica said. “Sometimes when you play a team you handled twice in the regular season, you wonder about your team’s intensity.”

Lacking that intensity at times, Hedgesville (16-7) nevertheless responded with a run when Musselman found itself getting back in the game.

None was more important than a 10-0 run that spanned parts of the second and third quarters.

Musselman (9-15) overcame a slow start and found itself within 23-20 late in the second quarter.

But a 6-0 run to end the period gave the Eagles a 29-20 halftime lead.

“(Musselman) did a good job of pushing us into spots where we really don’t do well,” Merica said. “If it hadn’t been for a couple of turnovers where we got some transition baskets, it’s a different game.”

Hedgesville opened the third with four quick points and built the lead to 13 points.

A lot of those points came in transition.

“Our goal was to limit their transition points,” Musselman coach Amanda Burge said. “We definitely weren’t making the stops we needed to make. We had times where we weren’t playing with the sense we needed.”

Still, Musselman wasn’t quite done, cutting the lead to 34-28 on a basket by Kyra Burnett, who led the Applemen with nine points.

Again, the Eagles responded to that run with a quick 6-0 spurt, highlighted by a steal an assist from Nunn to Elliott.

The game, which started fast with the teams combining for 32 first-quarter points, bogged down in the fourth, and Hedgesville pulled away late.

Hedgesville started the game with a 7-0 run, but the Mary Casto kept the Appleman in the game, scoring all seven of her points in the first quarter.

It stayed close until the end of the half, when Hedgesville had its late run.

Hedgesville rode the hot shooting of Kristen Nunn and Carly Elliott in the first half. The duo combined for 22 of the Eagles’ 29 first-half points.

Elliott finished with 20 points and Nunn 18.

Merica also praised the play of point guard Bianca Creamer. Despite scoring just one point, she did have eight assists, most of those on passes for easy baskets by Elliott and Nunn.

The victory Wednesday guarantees that Hedgesville will play at least two more games.

The winner of Friday’s Hedgesville-Martinsburg game at Hedgesville will host a regional tournament game. The winner will travel to the Section 2 winner.

“This was the game you have to win, to get to the point where you know you give yourself two more games,” Merica said. “Our goal was to get this game. We know Martinsburg has a good team. We split with them in the regular season. We are in the position we wanted to be in when we started (the season).”

For Burge, the new season started as soon as Wednesday’s game ended.

“We lose four seniors,” she said. “We won’t look at this season as far as what the record says. We played some good competition from teams in Maryland to Greenbrier East, which is the No. 1 team in the state. We didn’t back down from playing anyone and it wasn’t like we got blown out in those games.

“The kids we have coming back had an opportunity and they did improve. The new season starts now. It never ends.”